YIKES

03.29.12

Health-Care Costs Spike Again

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Supreme Court justices, take a gander at this. The average health-care costs for a family of four will top $20,000 in 2012, according to an independent research group—a 7 percent increase from 2011. It’s the fifth year in a row that health-care costs have increased between 7 percent and 8 percent, part of an overall health-care cost increase that has seen these expenses double since 2002, when the average family of four only paid $9,235. Employers still shoulder the burden of health-care costs, but employees have been paying a larger portion of these costs every year, analysts said.